Employer-owned towns?

I was watching Harlan County (great doc) and it got me thinking: What do free market libertarians think about towns/colonies where the employer provides housing?

I read (somewhere, i'll post a link if I remember where I read it) an opinion piece by a right wing, free market libertarian defending shitty employer-provided housing. Basically she said (not verbatim): "If the workers living on company land don't like it, they can leave."

Which makes me bang my head against the wall. "So you're living in what amounts to an employer-provided ghetto. Don't like it? Go be homeless."

This logic disturbs me because the practice (as seen in Harlan County) was active not long ago. With all the quasi-libertarian outrage today, I'm worried that this type of corporate exploitation of workers might mount a comeback relatively soon, especially if the "no government" lovers get their way.

Also: I'm hideously hung over right now. Excuse any misspellings or inconsistencies

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCiVMngILEI"]Harlan County, USA -- here's the trailer. Simply amazing documentary. I got choked up 3 or 4 times throughout.

It also depresses me, because there's so little worker solidarity these days...Thanks, Reagan

 

A town owned by a company, with all the services provided by that company would be like living in a communist country.

 

for the umpteenth time, get a fucking dictionary

company towns are among the least communist things out there

and i'm afraid that under libertarianism, they will become common once more

 

That looks like an awesome documentary.

 

I think wa bluska wica is correct, it would be more like living in a Libertarian country.

In a communist nation, everyone makes nearly the same salary; in an employer owned town all of the workers are dirt poor and the company owners and managers are very wealthy. And, pretty much, the company owns you ass.

.

 

Just like that tune "Sixteen tons" he ended up selling his sole to the company store. A company owned town is just vicious greed that keeps folks in a never ending cycle of poverty.

 

I've never lived in a town like this, but I remember as a child seeing factory and mill owned neighborhoods where the employees lived; and I've known people who lived in these "villages" and worked for these companies. Go to Google Images and type in "mill houses" and you can see pictures of them.

.

 

I have a neighborhood right down the road from me that used to house workers from Bethlehem Steel, I think its called Bethlehem Village. Right under the shadow of the plant, I guess it was pretty rough back when the mills operated. The grime from the smokestacks got into everything and the glow from the furnaces would light up the night. Just a giant shell now, the land is just used up, slag heaps, sludge pits, even a giant ammonia pit back in the recesses of the plant.

 

It really is. It should still be on Netflix. Watching these poor fucks fight to unionize is, at it's core, a feel-good story...at least until you see the state of the American labor movement today. And by "movement" I mean "carcass".

 

yeah, a great followup documentary would be "the last truck: the closing of a GM plant". It's actually about MY town.

im attempting to acquire the harlan co. doc right now.

 

Shit, I feel ya man. I'm from Philly. Back in the day the neighborhoods I grew up in at least had a couple of factories. They were just working-class type jobs, not careers, but it was something. Now all we have is empty warehouses full of rats and crackheads (and, from time to time, you might see a few curious looking fellas exchanging various goods of a narcotic nature lol)

But yeah, Harlan County will kick your ass. At some points I actually got choked up, other scenes had me ready to burn the flag and shoot a CEO lol

It should be required viewing in America.

 

I wish schools in this country would show Documentaries like this and how and why unions were formed. It would change some attitudes. That's why they don't. Tonight on Dateline,the subject is how the poor are affected by this most recent economic bullshit. Friend of mine came from Shelton,Washington and when he would return to town every once in a while and run into an old friend--they would ask"what shift you working" --not say hello. Simpson timber ran the place.

 

That sounds like communism, party leaders and higher ups in communism do not live like the great unwashed they overlord.

 

Who would not have lived here?

"one of the nicest places to live in Britain".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

.

 

sounds like Roadhouse movie to me..

 

That sounds like capitalism, party leaders and higher ups in capitalism do not live like the great unwashed they overlord.

 

I believe the U.S. government did something like this during the Manhattan Project.

 

distantly mirroring the german government, using concentration camp labor to build weaponry

the u$ treated its campers a hell of a lot better, until we decided that a few of them were a little too anti-fascist for the postwar environment

and even then -- but what's my point?

[fuck if i know]